How ’bout them pineapples?

Out of gift ideas for your friends for Christmas? Try the holiday pineapple! I swear this idea could have come straight out of Martha Stewart: Ghetto Living. You can do it in a few easy steps.

1. Buy pineapples from local grocery store.

2. Purchase cheesy cheapo decorations.

3. Proceed with pineapple pimpage (cat is not optional).

4. Tag it (tropical flava’ is optional).

5. Have cat inspect the product.

6. Have loved one pre-enact reception of gift.

7. Use leftover decorations to entertain suddenly possessed cat.

Fun, cheap, and cat-friendly…now that’s a good thing.

Politicians, turkeys

In the run-up to the ‘08 Presidential Election it seems increasingly difficult to filter through all the doublespeak to find anything of substance in any candidate.

Fortunately, we have Thanksgiving. Sure it’s a time to be thankful, to connect with family, and to boost the American economy by stampeding other shoppers, but it is also a time where we can learn a lot about who people are. This dates back to the first Thanksgiving, when the Native Americans learned something about the Pilgrims–these white dudes don’t know jack about surviving here–and the Pilgrims learned something about the Native Americans–these people are so nice, we bet it would be really easy to take their land.

To truly understand our political compadres and commadres of today, we only need to look at how he or she prepares the Thanksgiving centerpiece.  To paraphrase Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, “Tell me what kind of turkey you eat, and I’ll tell you what kind of turkey you are.”

In an absurd stroke of luck, The Queso Dip has gotten wind of many of the major candidates’ culinary plans for Turkey Day.

The Democrats

John Edwards plans to cook two turkeys. One will be a very meaty one that has enjoyed a life of privilege and tax breaks. The other turkey will be malnourished, neglected, and come from a farm where you can’t get service from Verizon. Edwards will talk about the contrast between these turkeys, the need to narrow the gap between them, and then gobble down the first turkey quickly so he can attend to his hair.

Barack Obama will give his turkey an audacious message of hope before killing it, stuffing it, and cooking it. It should be noted that the stuffing will include recipes from a variety of cultures.

Hillary Clinton has dodged most attempts to give information about her plans for this year’s turkey–only answering questions from people who have her recipe cards. However, she seems like she already has plans for cooking next year’s turkey. In related news, she will be spending the holiday with her husband.

The Republicans

Although his only experience with turkey is making a turkey sandwich, Rudy Giuliani plans to kill his turkey by scaring the heck out of it and causing it to jump into the oven. He will naturally cook it at 911 degrees.

Fred Thompson will start cooking his turkey very late this year and will be surprised when people are more excited about getting his autograph than eating his turkey.

After saying he isn’t going to cook a turkey, Mitt Romney will actually cook a turkey. He will then try to convince everyone that his traditional way of cooking a turkey isn’t really really weird. Romney is unclear about whether or not he will be cooking the turkey in Jackson County, Missiouri.

Although he used to be known as a cutting-edge cook who didn’t just follow tradition, John McCain will be using President Bush’s turkey recipe this year.

The Also-Rans

No one has asked John Kerry about his plans, but they will involve Heinz ketchup.

Al Gore has major plans for cooking a wonderful turkey feast this year. However, unbeknownst to him, men and women in black robes will steal his turkey. Nevertheless, he will be lauded as a humanitarian for not eating turkey and win awards from PETA, ASPCA, etc.

The President

After learning about tainted turkey meat, George Bush will declare war on the country of Turkey.

Cold Queso

The reports of my blog’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

Ten things that have happened since I last blogged (in chronological-ish order):

1) I got a new brother-in-law on September 16. My wonderful sister-in-law got a husband. He likes sports and video games. From my perspective, it was a match made in a heaven. A really beautiful wedding. And unlike our wedding day, Sara and I actually got to eat.

2) A few weeks later, we got more good news. Sara’s brother gave us the news that he was engaged! His bride-to-be also likes video games and plays a mean game of h-o-r-s-e. My in-laws and future in-laws are rad.

3) In early October, I participated in a two-week evangelistic series. Our team met at the Holiday Inn for 13 straight nights for a couple of hours each night. It was a rather grueling schedule, and really out of my comfort zone. For something that I got talked into doing, it actually proved to be quite enjoyable. I met some good people there.

4) In the midst of the meetings, Sara’s parents came to visit. We were hoping to show them our spectacular fall foliage, but we had an unseasonably warm autumn and most of the leaves were green. We took a trip out to Erie, Pennsylvania and strolled the beaches of Presque Isle State Park. They also helped us out a ton as we transitioned to our new apartment.

5) I was chosen to evaluate a school…in April…in Bermuda…for three days…seriously.

6) We sold our house and moved into an apartment. This sets us up nicely for a return trip to the west coast next year. It also makes my commute much shorter–from 50 minutes down to 10. Sadly, it makes Sara’s commute about a half hour longer. Way to take the bullet for the team wifey.

7) On aforementioned commute, Sara was the victim of road rage or road idiocy when a trucker smashed into her back bumper multiple times and then drove off. Fortunately, she was/is okay, but it shook her up quite a bit. The car wasn’t damaged too badly. Unfortunately, though she did get the license plate number the authorities weren’t willing or able to deal with it since the plates were Quebecois. Blame Canada, indeed.

8 I nearly killed myself playing a game of touch football by carlight with some church members. Seeing the ball wasn’t as much of a problem as seeing my teammates while trying to cut across the middle of the field. Despite taking a shoulder to the neck, it was my old man leg muscles that hurt for days.

9) Last weekend, I spent most of the night in jail and little kids threw pies at my face. A sadistic ritual known as the Fall Festival that, to this teacher, seems far more evil than Halloween.

10) I fell off the wagon for about a week with my exercises, but I’m back up to 100 pushups and 300 situps a day for 3 days a week. We’re still a little ways off from the “flex and your shirt rips all over” phase, but it’s a start.

I don’t know if anyone reads this blog anymore, but now that I have internet at the apartment and am slightlyslightlyslightly less busy, I will try to dip at least a couple times a month. Viva la Queso!